-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- A court has sentenced four relatives to years in prison for their roles in kidnapping and assaulting a gay man in Kentucky

The four were accused of luring Kevin Pennington into a truck in April 2011 and driving him up a deserted road into Kingdom Come State Park .

They pulled him out of the car and assaulted him , and as they were looking for a tire iron to kill him , he escaped , according to prosecutors .

David J. Jenkins , 39 , was sentenced Wednesday to three decades in prison while his 22-year-old cousin , Anthony R. Jenkins , will be locked up for 17 years .

A jury in London , Kentucky , found the two men guilty of kidnapping and conspiracy , but acquitted both of federal hate crime charges in a major blow to the Justice Department .

Two female relatives who pleaded guilty to the scheme to kidnap and assault the man -- as well as taking part in a hate crime -- were also sentenced Wednesday . The women were the first to be convicted under the federal sexual orientation provision to the hate crime law .

Mable A. Jenkins , 20 , got eight years and four months in prison , and Alexis L. Jenkins , also 20 , was sentenced to eight years . The two women testified against their male relatives .

Some of the charges against the relatives fell under the Matthew Shepard James Byrd Jr. . Hate Crimes Prevention Act , a federal law that outlaws attacks based on a victim 's sexual orientation .

Federal hate crime law was expanded in 2009 to include a victim 's perceived sexual orientation , gender or disability .

The law was named for Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. . Both men were attacked and killed in separate incidents in 1998 that drew national attention to the need to toughen hate crime laws .

Shepard was gay , and Byrd was killed in a racially - motivated attack . He was black .

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The four are accused of luring Kevin Pennington into a truck

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They then drove him to a park and assaulted him

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The victim fled when they are looking for a tire iron to kill him , prosecutors say